A future in the past
by jesseearlswift
Summary: the underhives of terra hold many secrets from the time before the dark age of technology,waiting under the grime of millenia, a sister of battle, lost in its confounding expanse, finds one of them, one that may change her order, forever. rated M for freedom. well, then it would be Mreedom wouldint it? ahhhh on with the story.
1. Chapter 1

' A Future In the Past '

AU: yo, feel free to review, first time writing, like, at all, no srsly, first time writing something that was not an essay in high school, wrote this over a 3 hour period once i got home, well, on with the story:

The sky was dark, save for a few orange smudges on the horizon where the few working lights were attached to the ceiling of the underhive, the place was dingy and dim, with the collected dust grime and rust of centuries of neglect showing on every surface. Pipes, small, enormous and every size in between, twisted and wound their way in every direction, some even still functioning for whatever purpose they had been designed for so, so long ago. Many had been used to carry nutrient paste to the hive dwellers here, back when there had been a population to sustain this far down in the bowels of the hive city.

Now though, the only denizens who braved this desolate place were dust and echoes, and the lost soul who found herself in this forsaken place. Sister Tianna, battle sister of the much vaunted (and feared, in equal measure!) Adeptus Sororitas concluded the lower levels of the underhives of terra –sucked-.

She had to say though, that she could have been worse off, much worse. She kicked a small chunk of rock-crete as she walked, the stone skittering across the floor (or was it a roof?) she was currently traversing, before falling into a crevice and out of her sight. Tianna checked her helmets display idly, seeing that the chronometer had indeed, not changed since she had last checked in what seemed to her to be five minutes ago. She sighed gently before she kicked another stone. "where by his light AM I?" She thought, "I came down in section 51B and im-" she checked her (so far useless) map. "in sector 91A? Sector? They changed naming conventions!?"

Tianna let a frustrated growl loose as she stopped to look at the map in more detail, her brows furrowing in displeasure. "Those ingrates at the administratum better hope I don't make it back to the upper levels before they, or I, expire from old age!" she almost felt like shouting, but that would make her head ache even worse then it already did. She HAD taken quite the beating on the way down, and the spot between her shoulder blades STILL hurt where she had been shot, though the power armour she wore had reduced the power of the stubb round she had taken enough that it had ONLY felt she had been kicked in the back by a grox.

She continued along (what she concluded) was a roof, thinking about how she had even gotten into this situation, she couldn't blame anyone, really, except for the utter BASTARD who had shot her, of course, the man had _been_(for he surely wasn't alive NOW, her squad wouldn't allow THAT) a frenzied rioter, apparently the feeding pipes that brought food down to the mid-level hive had stopped up, despite the prayers of the tech-adepts maintaining it, and as a result food riots had started up in the demetress district of level 76, normally, the local Arbites would have been able to handle it swiftly, but as it turned out, several large hive gangs had' had large presences in the area, and the purge attempt had ended in a bloody stalemate.

Luckily (or un-luckily considering her situation) her convent had been contacted to help clear the steets of the area, her prioress, Isabella, had sent several squads of sisters, including her own, to the heaviest afflicted area's to root out the entrenched gangs, she and her squad had been doing an admirable job with their flamers, right up until she had been shot.

Tianna still remembered the brief glimpse of shock on her sister superiors exposed face as she had tumbled down the vent, blown forwards by the shot in the back that had been somehow angled to miss her power-pack, thus hitting her with the forces of an ork warboss... well, maby not a warboss, she still had her ribs after all, she thought, maybe more a nob? No, boy? No, well, it was a stubb round... maybe a Gretchen? Yeah... well in any case it had been enough to make her lose her footing, she had fallen down that shaft for what felt like forever, not knowing if it led to a boiler or an air-vent fan, though the decent had not been on a straight course, (she would be a mere smear on the ground if it had been.)

When she had finally landed on a long since decomposed midden heap in the lower levels, she had been on her eighth catechism of purity, having been praying to the Emperor since the halfway mark of her decent for protection. And now here she walked, hoping to find an elevation shaft through which she could return to, if not her squad, then to a populated area of the hive to seek transport to them. She had to admit though; she had never seen architecture like what this place held, for all she knew, these shambled ruins were older than the dark age of technology! Tianna spotted another stone lying in her path on the tiles that made up the (floor?) and aimed another kick, sending another vanquished rocky foe to hurtle off into the distance.

Then she heard the crack of old, fossilized timber.

...

From directly beneath her feet.

"FUC-" she started, but she never finished, as she was too busy trying not fall to her 'death' a second time that day...

...

Tianna slowly and painfully straightened from her latest fall, throwing aside the traitorous floor(apparently roof) boards that had given way under her armoured form , she plucked a particularly vicious looking splinter from the hardened composite rubber lining around her neck, and flicked it away in annoyance. "Administratum. Lackey. Dead." She ground out, the vox built into her helmet giving a mechanical, sinister tone to her voice. She checked her map again, "-,Friar lane, Nottingham -" it un-helpfully supplied. she blinked, and shut off the map, and quietly, almost gently, set the flamer that had accompanied her so far on the other broken half of the counter she had fallen through on the way to the floor.

She flicked off the outgoing vox-link to her helmet, the outside worlds ambient noise cutting off immediately.

Then she swore her power armoured pants off.

She cursed the idiot who shot her, she damned the useless arbiter judge who had contacted her convent, the cursed up and down at the thrice damned stupid-ugly-HOLE she had fallen down, and she cursed that stupid ugly smug looking ultramarine across from her!

..."what?"

Silent(to us) temper tantrum thrown aside, she cautiously, almost reverently, walked to the poster, for that's what it was, and stared, and stared, And STARED. She reached out to touch it, but thought better of it, letting her hand fall back, limp at her side, "how?" she thought, and said aloud, "this place must be cen-no, _millennia_ old, older than the great crusades even! How did an image of his glorious angels of death find its way here?!"

She cast her gaze about, suddenly becoming more aware of her surroundings, at the half smashed counter, at the faded low-gothic letters for 'G' and 'W' at the doors, at the stacks of shelves, at the many, many small packages lining said shelves. She was in a merchants shop, she belatedly realized, one that had known of the astartes -well- before their inception. She turned back to the poster, and gently, ever so gently, reached out her power armoured hand, to brush away the rest of the dust that kept parts of the image hidden. There was writing, she realized, and, now heedless of the danger to the posters integrity, redoubled her efforts at removing **39** millennia's worth of grime. Tianna finished her task, and stood back to look at the image, this time, in its entirety, what she saw, she couldn't accurately describe with thought or words, she just blankly looked on with the gaze of the truly astonished.

On the poster, above the very detailed image of an adeptus astarte's of the ultramarine chapter, were the words: Warhammer 40k: in the grim and dark far-future, there is only war.

AUTHORS NOTE: this idea came to me when I was working at 12 o'clock in wallmart as nightshift, no idea as to why, but it didint leave me until I got home the next morning, 'what would happen if gw had been a franchise in the 40k universe in the 2nd millennium? And had predicted EVERYTHING that had taken place there? And 'what if someone had found the dillipated ruins of a gw store on terra?


	2. Chapter 2

' A Future In the Past '

AU: tricked ya! I got nothing ta say, on with the story.

"This is not possible" Tianna stated aloud, more to break the silence that had fallen over the area than anything. But there it was, a picture, supposedly made before _the dark age of technology_ depicting a fully armoured ultramarine, the image even depicted the more modern mark seven Aquila power armour, with its improved chest plates and covered power cables...

Tianna knew the standard stories and epics told by the ecclesiarchy by heart, she could recite them in her sleep! (and once had, to the annoyance of her fellow initiates at the time) but she also knew most of the REAL history of the imperium, more so than the average citizen for sure.

She knew that there had been the age of apostasy, when the predecessor's to her order were first created under the mad cardinal, she knew of the great crusades, when the glorious god-emperor of man had led his sons in the conquest of the galaxy, she also knew of the age of strife and the age of technology that predated it, though records of that time were scant and rarely found.

So she was able to know, without a doubt in her mind, that this picture predated not only the armour, not only the marine, but the_Idea_ of space marines , this was big, this was before the iron men had rebelled and almost wiped humanity from existence, warp, this was before the fall of the eldar! She carefully detached the poster, wincing at the slight scratches caused in her excitement earlier, and placed it within the storage container attached to her power pack, so that she could bring this to her superior's attention if she got back.

Tianna then turned to the rest of the room.

It was dark but not so much that she had needed to activate her helmets night vision, it was dim yes , with the only light coming from the hole she had made in the ceiling(she winced remembering) and her armours glowing display's on her power pack but that was all that was truly needed to illuminate the area in a soft glow. There were many shelves, she noticed, and she had to wonder what they contained, as the dirt and rubbish of centuries (times a couple hundred!) had settled over them, she saw one shelf nearby that contained objects with the rough outline of what might be a book, and trundled over to it, her footsteps leaving deep footprints in the dust on the floor.

She picked one of the bookish lumps at random, and , carefully mind you, shook it, dispelling most of the accumulated crap that had settled over it. "definitely a book" she thought, as she looked upon it, she wiped away the remnants of filth from the book with the front of her armours surcoat , she smiled at the thought of what her sister superior would have done if she had seen her sully the cloth in such a manner, but considering the situation, it could be excused (damn thing was filthy anyway, what with falling in a MIDDEN HEAP of all things...) and revealed the title: Warhammer 40k codex SPACE MARINES it said boldly, with another picture of an ultramarine, this one a centurion with a power fist, pointing meaningfully off into the foreground.

Better prepared to the shock of seeing something so new in a place so seemingly old, she didint drop the book in shock, she did, however, still let out a loud gasp of wonder at another one of these seeming relics. She tried to open the book, but it refused to open, "was it somehow glued together? Is it unsalvageable?!" she worriedly thought, it had been here a long time, surely it would be beyond rep- "oh" she thought, belatedly, "there is a wrapper on it". She removed said plastic wrap, thanking whatever shop owner who had felt the need to waste plastic on all of his products, took a deep, filtered breath, and finally opened the book.

It was written in the same primitive form of low-gothic as the poster, and she was able to read it, albeit with minor difficulty.

Tianna must have read for the better part of an hour, entranced by what she read, "it was a game", she thought, they had had a game that had involved all the major factions in the galaxy as well as some minor ones, before some of those races had even come to be. She checked the date located on the book, 2030, what was the mill? She looked again, no M marker, so that meant ether A: the producer of the book had made a rather large typo, which she doubted, or B: this book was made in the early second millennium, thirty nine THOUSAND years ago.

...

She felt kinda faint.

...

She snapped herself out of it and continued reading (after a few minutes staring listlessly at a wall and swaying a bit) , the game had been fairly complex, and had involved primitive small random number generators (called dice) as well as measuring tools and miniatures made of resin, many pictures were shown, and she looked at all of them, drinking in the sight. They were very detailed for being so small, and included most of the races of the galaxy, there were space marine terminators there, fighting what were apparently tau pathfinders, and in another, she saw a space marine tactical squad facing off against their tainted counterparts.

Seeing the chaos marines sent a shudder up her spine, she turned the page quickly.

She saw many things in that book regarding space marines and their works, the chapters, the stories (some of which she had not known of), things such as unit configurations and weapons, vehicles and formations, it was a chroniclers' wet dream! And all in the form of a playable game! Tianna had played her share of regicide growing up in the convent, and she could say she had been pretty skilled at it, but the complexities of this blew that game out of the water. Things such as morale, tanks, air support, all of it was an integral part of the game, and quite frankly, it looked amazing.

She had to wonder if it had been designed as a means for the lords and commanders of the past era's to train in tactics and strategy, as the price of such figures would have been –well- beyond the price range of the common man, "obviously a game meant for the wealthy" she thought. Maybe she should try to recover some of these things herself? Her prioress would love the novelty, as she, Isabella was her name, was known for her taste in tactical and strategic wargames, she had played Regicide against her frequently as a child, she remembered, partly as a means of entertainment, partly as a way to train the mind...And partly to bury the memories of their parents' deaths, that had still been fresh in their minds at the time.

After finishing the book, and looking through the attached profiles at the back, she set the book into her container and kept looking, she uncovered many books , each detailing a different army and race, she almost ran back to her flamer when she uncovered the codex for chaos marines, but restrained herself, a conflagration here would destroy EVERYTHING with all the dust in the air and dry wood, but she was quite willing to leave it where it sat, (after beating it with a ripped off table leg for a bit) she didn't trust chaos iconography, you never knew when they would get all glowy and sprout tentacles and stuff, (she had read the reports on the battle sisters who had discovered a chaos temple on Calamari 3 in the eastern fringe, and she had not liked it one bit)

She couldn't fit all these books in her container, but she could mark the area for when (if) she came back on her (otherwise fething useless) nav computer, she did, however, find one book that she had to take, had to with all of her being, sure, it had one of those flouncy martyred ladies on the cover as opposed to the black armour of her own ebon chalice, but there it was: Warhammer 40k Codex Adeptus Sororitas.

...

...

"Squee!"


End file.
